Several years ago, I visited a slum in Bangalore, India. After walking through the slum and trying to serve some of the people that lived there, the team I was with happened upon a beautiful brick church building, complete with steeples and stained glass. I was a little surprised to see such a building in the middle of such poverty, and asked several of the people in the slum about the church.

A Wonderful Church in the Slum

They had only good things to say about the church. It was a good church. The church tried to offer food, clothing, and basic healthcare to the people of the slum. Those who attended the church said that they liked going. The music was beautiful. The pastor was kind. And they said that the church was cool and clean, and attending the church gave them some reprieve from the heat and filth that surrounded them. Some said that the church gave them a glimpse of what heaven must be like. It was a little bit of heaven on earth.

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Is this the same preaching, when Christ says to the rich young man, “Sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor;” and when the priest says, “Sell all that thou hast and… give it to me”?

— Søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom

Ultimately, evangelism is not about looking to heaven and to the afterlife as the cure for all of life’s problems. The central message of evangelism must not be “Get right with God because then eternity will be grand.” While the Gospel contains truth about heaven and eternity, it also focuses on life here on earth.

The Truth of the Gospel

The Gospel contains numerous truths about loving one another, taking care of our neighbor, looking after our family, and serving those in need. If we are ignoring these aspects of the Gospel, we are not living or obeying the entire Gospel, but are instead using the hope of heaven as a way to escape the responsibilities of life on earth.

In his book Naming the Powers, Walter Wink put it this way:

Christian evangelism has all too often been wedded to a politics of the status quo and merely serves to relieve stress by displacing hope to an afterlife and ignoring the causes of oppression.

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If evangelism is about all of life (as we saw yesterday), then evangelism is not a “one time event.” Evangelism never stops.

Just because someone “believes in Jesus” does not mean they have been “evangelized.” Again, if the Gospel is about how we live and act in all of life, then evangelism is also about how we live and act in all of life. Evangelism isn’t over with someone just because they believe in Jesus. Before a person got to that point, evangelism had been going on for a very long time, and will continue to go on for the rest of that person’s life.

You and I are Not Evangelized

Let me put it more bluntly. You and I are not yet evangelized. Sure, we may believe truths about the Gospel, but if the Gospel is about all of life, and seeing the rule and reign of God expand in our life, then we have not been fully evangelized until the rule and reign of God is complete in our lives, and that will never happen this side of eternity.

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I suggested yesterday that the Gospel is about all of life, and seeing the ever-increasing expansion of the rule and reign of God in our own lives. If this is true, in what we say, what we do, and how we act, then what does this mean for evangelism?

What is Evangelism?

Well, it might be helpful to note that in Scripture, the words evangelism and gospel are essentially the same words. Frankly, I wish our Bible translators had shown this connection better, as it would have cleared up a lot of confusion about what the Gospel is and how to do evangelism. Both words come from the Greek root evangel. Our word evangelism is not even a translation from the Greek! And as for the word “Gospel,” it is not the best translation either, but is a hybrid of Old English and German and means “good story” or “good message.”

So the problem with translating the evangel word family is that there are not any good English words to translate it to. In the days of Jesus and the apostles, evangel referred to a good message which had immediate and lifelong positive implications for those who heard it. It was an announcement of liberty to the captives and freedom for the oppressed. It was the announcement that the enemy had been defeated, the war had been won. It was the declaration that the old ruthless and evil king had died, and a new king of peace, righteousness, and justice now sat on the throne.

When someone heard this message, their lives would be forever different. The good message was so revolutionary that the simple act of telling it to others caused great joy and brought great freedom to all who heard it.

The Gutted Gospel

But the typical evangelistic message of today does no such thing. Why not? For two reasons. First, we are leaving out most of the message. The typical gospel presentation shares a few facts about a man named Jesus who lived 2000 years ago, and then a few facts about what happens to us after death as a result, but leaves out everything relating to our life here and now. As such, the Gospel has been gutted of most of its persuasive power.

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The Kingdom of Heaven is intimately tied with evangelism, but in ways that many do not suspect.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Not Heaven

For many centuries now, at least since the Reformation, and possibly before that, people have understood the “Kingdom of Heaven” (or the Kingdom of God) as being equivalent to “heaven.” People have also noticed that in Scripture, the topics of the Gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven are intimately connected. In many places, the Gospel is the message about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so when people assume that the “Kingdom of Heaven” equals “Heaven” then it seems logical to assume that the gospel message is focused on “How to get to heaven when we die.”

But in recent decades, many Christians around the world have begun to teach and write about the Kingdom of Heaven in a different way. Noticing, for example, in Matthew 6:10 that the prayer of Jesus for the coming of the kingdom is for God’s will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven, many teachers and writers have argued that the Kingdom is not heaven, but rather God’s rule and reign on earth, just as God rules and reigns in heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

With this understanding, the Kingdom of Heaven is already “in heaven” but through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is expanding to the earth as well. It is not here fully, but the standard has been placed, and the claim has been made. The present rulers of this age are not happy with the arrival of the Rightful King, and so they fight with tooth and claw to hold on to their power, dominion, and authority.

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Much evangelism today is based on meeting needs. I understand why we do this, but I think there are some inherent dangers to this approach.

Meeting Needs Creates Self-Centeredness

One problem with meeting needs then is that it focuses on the needs, rather than on the people. Such an approach trains causes the ministries and the ministry target group to become self-centered. The ministry leaders want to find a “big need” so they can “make a splash” and “go big” in the community, in the hopes that the newspapers and news stations will notice, and give the church or ministry some free publicity. In this way, meeting a need of the community becomes about meeting our own need for recognition, honor, and glory. We must therefore be wary about doing our good deeds before men to be praised by them (cf. Matt 6:1-2).

But being “needs oriented” also causes people who have needs to become more self-centered. Learning about big needs in the community usually includes some sort of “Needs Survey.”  And when we go around asking people what their needs are, it trains them to think of God as someone who is just there to meet their needs. “Needs Surveys” train people to think only about themselves and ask, “How are you going to meet my needs?”

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